


Lead Me To Your Door

by blackrabbit42



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20202616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrabbit42/pseuds/blackrabbit42
Summary: “I knew a kid named Jensen once.”





	Lead Me To Your Door

_Five_

By age five, Jared has gotten lots of practice choosing the best person to sit next to at preschool. Six different pre-schools worth of practice, to be exact. He isn’t sure exactly what his dad does for a job, but it really doesn’t matter, the result is the same; Jared is an expert at making new friends. Dad says they’ll only be in this town for a week, but still, spending a week with someone who isn’t good at sharing would be a drag. 

He stalls a little, resisting the gentle push of the teacher’s hand at his back, giving himself just another moment to decide. Luckily, he spots the perfect friend at the back of the room. The sandy-haired boy isn’t paying attention, he’s reading a book under the table. And not just any book, but one of Jared’s personal favorites, the all-time most suspenseful book ever written- _Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel_. 

There’s only one other person at the table, a girl, so there are several empty seats available. Jared sits down right next to the boy. “I’m Jared,” he says. The boy jerks his head up, blushing deeply behind a spray of freckles, his green eyes wide. “I love that book,” Jared adds, pointing. 

The boy looks quickly to his other side, as if Jared might be talking to someone else. Finding no one, he looks back down at his book. “I’m Jensen,” he says, and then in a very small voice, “I think it’s kind of sad.”

Jared understands. Katie the Steam Shovel loved digging, and she and Mike Mulligan were a great team. It _was_ sad that in the end, Katie got turned into a boiler and couldn’t dig any more. 

“But at least she got to stay with Mike,” Jared says. 

Jensen nods solemnly. They turn to their coloring project and work side-by-side in silence. 

At lunch, Jared finds Jensen sitting by himself. 

At recess, Jared teaches Jensen how to pump his legs on the swings. 

At the end of the day, Jared sits with Jensen on the bus. He’s noticed by now that Jensen doesn’t say much, and doesn’t seem to have any other friends at the school. It gives him an uneasy feeling in his stomach. 

“I can’t be your friend for long,” he tells Jensen. “We’re moving to Dallas next week.” 

Jensen looks out the window and doesn’t say anything for the rest of the bus ride. 

The next morning, when Jared gets on the bus, Jensen asks him, “Does that mean that you’re going to be my friend for _this week_?”

“Sure,” Jared answers. “I brought you some Twizzlers.” He hands Jensen a piece that’s only a little gummy from being held in Jared’s sticky fist. 

Jensen takes it and smiles. 

It’s the best week Jared has had in a long, long time. 

++++++++

_Twenty-Six_

Jared had only dozed lightly in these early morning hours, he kept waking up when he rolled over and felt a warm body next to him in the bed. A very _nice_ warm body. It’s been a long time; he doesn’t allow himself one night stands like this very often, and maybe he shouldn’t have this time either. But it had been one of those up all night talking and one-thing-leading to another sort of nights, and he doesn’t regret a thing. 

His bedmate—they’d never gotten around to sharing names—is sleeping soundly and doesn’t wake when Jared presses his body up close, relishing the feel of skin on skin, of the fresh smell of his shampoo. Jared carefully holds up his wrist and squints at his watch. He could spare one more hour of this before he needed to get on a plane and leave this Midwestern town behind. Something drags at him. Pulls hard on his heart. _Isn’t this nice?_ His heart was saying. _You could stay, you could have this_.

In the dim morning light that struggles through the window, he can see a copy of _Lullaby_, by Chuck Palahniuk on the nightstand. One of Jared’s favorite authors, but he hasn’t gotten around to reading that particular book. He pictures the two of them reading in bed on Sunday mornings. Actually, it’s a little difficult to picture it the way he wanted, because this beautiful, beautiful man was so painfully shy that he’d gotten undressed under the covers the night before. But Jared can feel it, warm and strong, and the best thing he’d had pressed up against him in forever. 

“Hey,” he says when the man shifts awake. 

“Oh, man, I’m sorry. I don’t usually—”

“No way,” Jared says. “No way are you apologizing. That was amazing. _You _ are amazing.” He shifts his body back a few inches so he can see better. The man ducks his forehead into Jared’s shoulder, his soft hair tickling Jared’s chin. 

“Yeah, that was… wow, really good,” the man whispers, as if someone might hear him and judge. “It’s just that, I don’t know. I’m not used to this.” 

Jared kisses the top of his head and runs his hand down the man’s naked back. He laughs softly. “I hardly believe tha—” he starts to say. But on second thought, something about it feels true. This is a tiny apartment, a lonely, small space. Jared has a sudden urge to cancel everything. The flight, the new job, the lease agreement on his apartment in Vancouver. Call it all off and just stay. 

“I have to leave,” he says, more to remind himself than anything. “I have a flight out of Fort Worth this morning. I’m glad you woke up so I can say goodbye.” 

Jared feels the man’s chest hitch slightly, a barely perceptible sigh of disappointment. 

“I never caught your name,” Jared says. “I told you mine, right?”

“Yeah, Jared,” the man says softly. “I remember. I’m Jensen.” 

“I knew a kid named Jensen once.” Jared says.

It doesn’t occur to him until later that night that it might have been the same Jensen. 

It doesn’t occur to him until the middle of that same night that Jensen might have known all along. 

++++++++

_Sixty-four_

As nursing homes went, Danforth West isn’t all that bad. Jared wouldn’t need to be here very long, it’s more of a rehab stay than anything more. Just until he can walk again, which hopefully would be fairly quick, what with modern medicine and all. He’s already had one session with the physical therapist, and she’d said—in her overly-chirpy-I-just-love-working-with-the-elderly voice (that he totally didn’t deserve)—that he was doing great, and he’d been up and about in no time. 

Both of his knees, broken in the car crash, begged to differ. But the food here was okay, and there was an honest-to-goodness X-box in the recreation room, so he supposes things could be worse. 

The only thing is, having all this down time… he feels a little lonely. He really misses talking business with his colleagues, or the guys in his senior softball league. Sure, some of them had stopped by for visits, but it had been awkward, full of small talk and glancing at watches. Occupational hazard he guesses—never had time for a family, and this was the price. 

There’s a knock on the door. 

“Mr. Padalecki?” A nurses aide appears in the doorway. “I’ve brought you a roommate.” She backs into the room, pulling a wheelchair through the door behind her. “This is Mr. Ackles.”

The man in the wheelchair sits rigidly straight, a posture Jared has come to associate with patients who are in rehab for back pain, but his face is tilted down towards his lap. His hair is shot through with silver, and laugh lines trace the corner of his eyes. Mr. Ackles, Jared sees, has come to Danforth West prepared. A worn paperback copy of _Fountainhead_, by Ayn Rand, lay open over his knee. Jared kicks himself for not bringing any of his own reading material; all they had in the “library” were old copies of Reader’s Digest, romance novels and Louis L’Amour paperbacks. 

“I’ve been meaning to read that,” Jared says, nodding his head at the book. “Maybe you’ll let me borrow it when you are done.”

Mr. Ackles keeps his eyes down, but he smiles shyly. “Hopefully, we won’t be in here that long,” he says. “But you can take it, I’ve read it a bunch of times.”

“Tell you what,” Jared says, I’ll trade you my pudding for a week.”

This time Jensen really smiles, and looks up at Jared, which is like taking a direct hit to the heart. There’s something familiar about those vibrant green eyes, something that pulls tightly on the melancholic parts of his brain, but he can’t really put his finger on it. 

“What did you say your name was again?” Jared asks. 

“It’s Jensen.”

This time, it’s Jared who’s smiling. The smell of Twizzlers and the feel of shy bare skin floods his brain. 

“Really?” he says. “I knew a kid named Jensen once.”


End file.
